Broken Hand

January 21st, 2019 at 09:35 am

Well, things were bopping along boringly with only stupid things breaking: like replacing DH's iphone the first week of the month ($250) and then a necessary computer repair and update ($250 the second week of the month).

This, the third week of the month, brought a broken hand. That hand belongs to my third child. Collectively the children that I have birthed have occupied space on this planet for almost 71 years and this is the first broken bone that any one of them has procured.

Scenario for event: 9:30 PM on Monday night. Younger son says something completely annoying to his older brother and there is some type of tussle. Younger child sprints up the stairs to avoid retalliation by his older brother. Older brother runs up the stairs and trips on the top one, falling forward and catching all 120 pounds of his weight on his right hand.

"It's broken," he wails. "I heard a pop,"

"You didn't hear a pop. I don't think it's broken," said I.

Younger brother trots down to get him a bag of ice because Older Brother E is almost crying.

In the space of 15 minutes the pinky on the right hand (medically known as Number Five) swells. A bruise forms on the palm of his hand. I give him motrin and more ice and tell him to go to the bed.

Tuesday morning its worse looking and The Patient is convinced he is indeed correct that it is broken. I, not letting him know that I secretly agree with him, say "Let's get that checked out before you go to school!" Cheerfully, like going into school late is a real treat.

We see the nurse practitioner who has the first available appointment. She looks at it and winces. Son almost cries as she pushes and moves and check for range of motion. "Well, we'll need an xray to have that checked out. Good news is that I think its really only the finger and not the hand."

We got to xray. Son goes to school. I get a call with the results: fracture, growth plate, orthopedic visit required.

I call to make appointment and have to decide: pediatric orthopedic or hand specialist. I pick hand specialist. I email son to let him know he's got a fracture. He informs me via return email that he already knew this. No smugness, just assurance that he was correct on his first guess. And he did hear AND feel the pop, which he now refers to as THE FRACTURE.

Next day we see the orthopedic specialist. Good news: no surgery. Bad news: needs a cast. More bad news: hand is so swollen they can't put the permanent cast on til next week so they put him in a temporary splint. That could seriously hurt someone if Older Son decided to go for their solar plexus. He's dysgraphic to begin with and the cast does nothing to help his handwriting. Good new is he can still type!

So we are off to the orthoped again on Wednesday for an additional xray and the cast. The fracture is on the growth plate of the left pinky. I want him to have normal size hands so I'd do surgery if necessary, but thankfully that isn't required.

The good news is that we received our debit card to access our HSA funds. I'm wondering how fast we'll go through them with this little exercie so early in the year.

And, oh yeah, in my scatterbrainedness, I somehow managed to throw out my oldest daughter's inhaler. That cost me $96. I had to spend an hour with CVS Caremark Pharmacy Folks for a vacation over-ride to get them cover the replacement inhaler. The good new is that inhaler (same thing) only cost me $35. Not sure on the origins of that decrease, maybe my family deductible is already met with the hand fiasco? I'm sure that the mystery of that will be revealed with some EOB's coming my way.

And my 16 year old son is now the consumer of copious amounts of chocolate milk for added calcium. And The Patient fought with me about going to early Friday AM soccer practice. I said No. He said Yes. I did win that one, but only until the real cast is put on.